Amid the Los Angeles Lakers’ on-court celebration of their second straight NBA title on Thursday night, ABC announcer and former NBA point guard Mark Jackson made a bold statement.

Jackson said Kobe Bryant is the greatest Laker ever.

Lakers great Jerry West, the man whose likeness is in the NBA’s logo and one of Bryant’s rivals for that title, has since come out in agreement with Jackson’s proclamation.

No doubt West and Jackson both know far more about basketball than I do. But I still disagree with them – and I bet Kareem Abdul Jabbar and James Worthy do, too.

Kobe is the best player in the game today. But for my money, Magic Johnson is still the greatest Laker ever.

When comparing the two, there’s little doubt that Bryant is the more talented scorer. He is more adept at creating his own shots and is the better clutch shooter. But basketball is about more than just scoring. It’s about rebounding, assists, defense, leadership.

Advantage: Magic, Magic, Magic and Magic.

Ask me who the greatest Laker was and I’ll go with the 6-foot-9 point guard who revolutionized the game, essentially creating a new position – the point forward – and finishing his career with 138 triple-doubles, second in NBA history only to Oscar Robertson’s 181.

I’ll go with the guy who was so versatile he could play center in the NBA finals as a rookie and finish his career as the NBA’s career leader in assist average (11.2), a record he still holds. And he didn’t just take up space when Paul Westhead started him in the post in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA finals -- playing center, forward and guard at different points in the game, he scored 42 points, pulled down 15 rebounds and had seven assists and three steals in a 123-107 series-clinching win over Dr. J and the 76ers.

I’ll go with the guy who could never have been described as selfish, who never groused about a teammate getting more of the limelight than he did, who went out of his way to make his teammates better.

Kobe is a great player, a future Hall of Famer and one of the most talented scorers to play the game. But the greatest Laker ever was and is Magic Johnson.